Also, Significant Other was one of the two albums I had gotten my hands onto because of a tendency that would later cause an unending album list that I've been trying to get through for the past ten or so years. I am a naturally curious guy, so much so that it's often seen as being nosy. It was my curiosity about a reference to one band that had gotten me to Korn, and that curiosity was just beginning to give me a workout. It was established by then that I loved Limp Bizkit, and I had two albums, but I knew there was a third one, before Chocolate Starfish. Since they weren't going to release a fourth fast enough for me, I decided to go back once again.
Significant Other is a different beast than its predecessor and successor. It is a statement by the band that they are here to stay, and is a tour-de-force. Although, to me, not better than Three Dollar Bill, Y'all$, it is one of their best efforts, and one of the most significant albums of its time. The sound is more refined, its rougher edges trimmed to accomodate the shift, its glossier and clearer. Wes Borland, Sam Rivers, John Otto, DJ Lethal, they all bring it, and Fred Durst ups his game. But it wasn't just the cleaner production, the fact that there were more songs this time around, guest appearances that spiced it up (Aaron Lewis of Staind, Jonathan Davis of Korn, Method Man.) It was something quite else.
See, in a way, Significant Other is darker than its predecessor and its successor both. It was more depressing, and this time sparing some space for autumn or rainy evenings. I'm Broke may have been a song about money troubles, but was bitter. No Sex, I couldn't even relate to, as I hadn't had any just yet (and wouldn't for years to come), but the messy room, tangled up bedsheets, forgotten cigarette burning in the ashtray imagery of it blew me away. The Jonathan Davis spot of Nobody Like You was a tale of betrayal, and the delicious melodies brought on, that legendary chorus ("I've got a reason and I want to know") always got me where it hurts. A Lesson Learned is a lament if there ever was one. Hell, even Nookie isn't that much fun and games once you hear the creeping angst under the surface.
But two tracks take the cake with this one. They were both on Side A of my cassette version. The first was Don't Go Off Wandering. This one was especially potent not only because of the darker tones captured with its chorus, or the way Fred sang the words ("You don't feel nothin' at all"). It was the verses. Because in a way, I was a hopeless dreamer stuck in an adolescence I didn't understand or want. The real world was too unfair, I guess, it seemed. "Maybe there's more to life than it seems / I'm constantly running from reality / chasing dreams." I was.
The second such track was Rearranged. Never mind that it was sort of quiet, laid-back, and a relationship song to boot, it was so deliciously sad, so eager to introduce me to a knot in my chest that I couldn't get enough. The bridge was where it all went down, and since I didn't have the lyrics, I even misheard a line that got to me: "You think that everybody is a saint / I don't think that anybody is like you." Of course, context makes the actual line, "...that everybody is the same" fall into place, but in my head, the lines made perfect sense in isolation.
Within the context of the song, they made even greater sense. I thought it was sung by a sinner, a monster that I perceived myself to be for the longest time - he had encountered a saint, someone whom had seen him, and accepted him as he was. But he couldn't take that, he couldn't handle it. The goodness, it was too much for him, so he rejected it, he said no. Interesting that even then I thought misery was sometimes too comfortable to give up, and acceptance so alien that it would be unbearable. I would shed this thought later in my life, but it took a lot to realize it fully.
What makes Significant Other fall short of being perfect is that there are feel-good songs in the album that both disrupt the flow* and serve no purpose. Those were Just Like This, 9 Teen 90 Nine and Show Me What You Got. Amidst hard-hitting hits like Trust? or No Sex or even the brainless, mind-numbing but undoubtedly fun Break Stuff* (which also had an anime AMV), these songs had no place and felt like they belonged to the scrap heap, perhaps to be released in a rarities compilation at a later date. They don't hit as hard, they don't carry the mood, they're just sort of... there. Softer and somehow seeming more radio-friendly, these bring the album down.
But despite its flaws, and despite how dated it might seem, Significant Other is a 2000 Brigader that is still enjoyable and fun. Limp Bizkit would veer towards a weird direction in later years, never quite capturing the spark they had with their first two releases, but they would leave behind an interesting legacy.
The other tangent in the 2000 Brigade belonged to my favourite rapper, and for different reasons, obviously.
*Footnotes: 1- An album's flow was something I was beginning to grasp - that it had to go from song to song without odd ones out, or moments that would be breaks from the album's otherwise cohesive structure.
2- Break Stuff's video, along with many others, was parodied by Bowling for Soup in their video for Girl All the Bad Guys Want (off of Drunk Enough to Dance, 2002.) In the video, however, unexpectedly, Slipknot shows up, bottles the Fred Drust and then proceeds to stomp on him. The video itself is hilarious, by the way.
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